We need to ask ourselves if a third runway is really needed at airport

We now have proposals to build a third runway at Chek Lap Kok. Predictably, and understandably, these have been made and supported by those who stand to benefit (the Airport Authority, the airlines and the construction industry).

And, as always, the projections have been made on a 'business-as-usual' model which simply extrapolates the present position.

These are valid, albeit narrow, views and the approach is one which readily presents itself, but they may not bring the right outcome for Hong Kong.

We have seen many such proposals in Hong Kong which have been based on an incomplete appreciation of what the future might and should hold. The Lok Ma Chau spur line was an immensely costly construction project intended to relieve congestion at Lo Wu. Before it was completed, electric card readers at Lo Wu had achieved this at a fraction of the price.

On the mega-project scale, which the third runway indeed is, we have the example of the container port.

The recent Port 2020 study similarly extrapolated existing figures and arrived at the need for a new port, CT 10 [container terminal 10]. This might have obliged a 245-hectare reclamation off Tai O.